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of St Andrews, Mary & Charles II, all people of great ability.
Perhaps Mary was the ablest man of them all.
What a devil of a kingdom for a young civilized woman to rule! Of all the traitorous, self seeking men about her,
the Regent Murray was easily the meanest, & the most self-seeking hound. The best shot ever fired in Scotland was fired by Bothwell of Philiphaugh, in Linlithgow.
Morton a scoundrel of course, but able, as was Murray. Poor Mary had no chance from the first. Knox, though I loathed him, was
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perhaps the best of the lot, with "this Monstrous Regiment of Women" & his odious & anti-patriotic fawning on Elizabeth. I am glad he rowed in the galleys those two years, & hope the boatman's whip fell smartly at times on his shoulders.
You bring out well
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nymphomane Queen Elizabeth never troubled about marriage, that poor Mary never omitted it.
I wish she had got out & married Philip II as she intended.
Certainly the Stuarts were an unlucky race, & as bad kings as may be, or we could never have stood the Hanoverians, with
their grossness & vulgarity. Perhaps it was as well to change Guelf for Windsor, though it sounds rather like a grocer's name ... but possibly an honest grocer.
Still they remain Guelf. For though you choose to call an oak a palm, it still remains an oak.
